Live At Soup- Marconi Union, Contours and The Flightpath Estate

On Saturday evening, as Manchester basked in the June sunshine and Stephenson Square was crammed with afternoon drinkers, The Flightpath Estate DJs (me and Martin on this occasion) arrived to play support to Contours and Marconi Union in the basement of Soup, a bar and gig/ club space in the corner of the square. Soup’s live space is a small room, capacity 150, with some of the most graffitied toilets in the city.

We started early, 6.20pm, with some ambient sounds, Martin and me playing back to back- Sedibus, Synkro’s brand new remix of Khartomb, Coyote, M- Paths, Andy Bell’s cover of Smokebelch, the Sabres of Paradise Endorphin remix of Bjork, Underworld’s Dark And Long (Most ‘Ospitable), Richard Fearless, Sabres Of Paradise’s Chapel Street 7am and a little bit of dub courtesy of African Head Charge and KlangKollektor. At 7.20pm promoter Paul Watt, the man who sorted it for us to play and sporting an Acid House Chancer t- shirt, introduced Contours.

Contours is Tom Burford, from Cumbria but now Manchester based. With his equipment set up at the front of the stage- Moog synth, oscillator, laptop and a large wooden xylophone- Tom starts out slowly, chilled washes of synth filling the space. A minute or two in Tom brings a beat in and from that point on he’s in constant motion, head bobbing, sudden flicks of the wrist that change the sound, drop out the drums and bring them back in, flitting between bits of kit and several times moving to the xylophone, little bursts of wooden melodies on top of the ambient/ electronic/ synth action. Tom doesn’t stop, the set building and flowing for forty minutes, shifting about as he works his way through his tracks. It’s vibrant and engaging, some hints of Four Tet in the sounds emanating from the stage, and very enjoyable.

This is Arp Phase from Contours’ recent album Elevation, minimal, futuristic and organic sounding, the synths and oscillators sounding like they’ve come alive. 

We get fifteen minutes of DJ time while Contours’ equipment is moved and Marconi Union get set to play. There are three members of Marconi Union, from left to right, one playing keys and synth, one with a bank of synths and pedals and playing guitar, and the third on laptop. All three have headphones on and are seemingly lost in their own world, concentrating intently, fully focussed on their part in making the music. 

The songs build slowly, synth chords, waves of sound, drums thudding in, arpeggios from the Telecaster, piano lines and disembodied and distorted voices. Things happen slowly- glaciers move slightly and tectonic plates shift a little in while we wait for chord changes- and then suddenly, walls of noise swell and break. The films projected behind them echo what’s coming through the PA, variously liquids flowing, cityscapes, lines of people walking past from old films- tension and release, ebb and flow, light and shade. This is A Citizen’s Dream from Signals, from the end of  2021. 

Monday’s Long Song

Back to 2001 and Le Tigre, Kathleen Hanna’s Riot Grrl/ electronic rock outfit remixed by turn of the century wise guys DFA. A remix that is tense and funky, expansive and focussed, disco and rock. Kathleen asks all the key questions that you want the answers to when you’re under the strobe and the mirror ball, ‘who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp? who took the ram from the ramalamadingdong?’, while the guitars, cowbell and handclaps do their thing. ‘Wanna see me disco?’, she asks.

How did a record which seems so recent, come out so long ago?

Deceptacon (DFA Remix)

Over at Twitter Anthony Teasdale posted a thread about the impact LCD Soundsystem and DFA had on a bored, staid early 21st century music scene- the wallop and knowingness of Losing My Edge, the cowbell dancefloor mayhem of House Of Jealous Lovers, some of DFA’s remixes (the one above, the one of Soulwax, their version of M.I.A.’s Paper Planes) and the timeless, emotive brilliance of Someone Great. All of which sounds like a Sunday mix waiting to happen. 

James Murphy gets a mention in the new single from Galliano, Circle Going Round The Sun. Galliano have long been residing in the ‘where are they now?’ file and now they’re back.

I’ve always had a massive soft spot for Galliano, loved their early 90s releases on Acid Jazz. I saw them at The Hacienda in the early 90s, a gig nowhere near to sold out but Rob Gallagher, Snaith, Valerie Etienne and Mick Talbot played like it was crammed to the rafters. The new song is a stream of beat poetry and influences with references to Andrew Weatherall, Murphy and Gil Scott Heron (also name checked in Losing My Edge) over a pulsing bassline and live percussion. A welcome return to the fray.  

Forty Minutes Of Music From Reviews At Ban Ban Ton Ton

I’ve been writing guest reviews for Dr. Rob’s Ban Ban Ton Ton website for a few years now, Rob operating out of a remote location in rural Japan (having emigrated there from London) and me in south Manchester. Rob gets sent all sorts of music- Balearic, electronic, cosmische, ambient, jazz, dub, reggae and all points in between- and he passes some of it on to me to listen to and write about. He’s keen that Ban Ban Ton Ton has different voices and I’m happy to receive the music and write about it. I currently have a few things lined up to do not least a review of Contours who me and Martin supported at Soup last night along with the headliners Marconi Union. Full reviews to follow both here at Bagging Area and at Ban Ban Ton Ton . One of the wonders of the internet age is the shrinking of distances and the ease of distribution of music. 

In 2024 I’ve already reviewed seven releases at Ban Ban Ton Ton. I’ve pulled tracks from each of those seven albums/ EPs into one mix below that works both as a sampler and as a forty minute mix in itself, starting out quite chilled with some dub/ post- punk from the early 80s, heading into ambient territory, then becoming more rhythm heavy with some cosmische and some early 90s Italo cosmic disco. 

Forty Minutes Of Music From Reviews At Ban Ban Ton Ton 

• Khartoum: Swahili Lullaby
• Project Gemini: Colours & Light
• Sedibus: SETI Part 3
• Caolifhionn Rose: Constellation
• Kosmischer Läufer: Spargelspiegel
• Sordid Sound System: It’s About Time
• a.s.o.:Go On (Extended Remix)
• Meo And Steve: Global Village (Funk Version)

Khartomb were an early 80s post- punk/ dub/ bossa nova outfit with one 7″ single and a Peel Session to their name. The single- Swahili Lullaby- has been picked up by Jason Boardman’s Manchester based label Before I Die and re- issued along with two new remixes. My review was at Ban ban Ton Ton last week and you can read it here. Before I Die is fast becoming essential, every release testament to Jason’s ability to find new music. Earlier this year he put out the excellent Dubtapes Vol. 1 by KlangKollektor and last year’s Konformer was a superb album too. 

Project Gemini is the freak beat/ funk/ soul/ 60s/ cinematic outfit for Paul Osborne. His new album Colours & Light is packed full of guests and is a trip through the night, a kaleidoscopic night out with a  ’60s flavour, Turkish and Arabic influences and some French vibes. My review is here. 

I’ve written about Sedibus here and at Ban Ban Ton Ton. The latest Sedibus album, SETI, is one of this year’s records that has stuck around my turntable, The Orb’s Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer in fine form. My Ban Ban Ton Ton review is here accompanied by Rob’s own thoughts on the album. 

Caolifhionn Rose is a Manchester based artists and her album Constellation is out now on Manchester label Gondwana.  Previously Caolifhionn (pronouced Kallin) has sung with The Durutti Column. Her musical background is in jazz and folk. The album is a wonderous thing- piano, jazz and folk shades, ambient and classical, samples, saxophone and a lighter than air feel, a response to 2020’s lockdowns and the power of nature. Read my review here. 

Fred Und Luna’s The Future Sounds Of Kraut Vol 2 is a seventeen track compilation of music inspired by the West German bands of the 1970s. I’ve included two of my favourites here, Kosmischer Läufer and Sordid Sound System. My review at Ban Ban Ton Ton is here. 

a.s.o. are based in Berlin and make downtempo, hip hop influenced dance music. They released a remixes EP this year which I wrote about here. 

Meo and Steve’s GLobal Village was one of six slices of Italian cosmic disco/ Afro/ funk/ house from the 1990s, originally out on Riccione’s Tribal Italia label and now re- issued on Dualismo Sound. Read more here. 

V.A. Saturday

The 1977 various artists compilation album New Wave looks like a major label cash in (it came out on Vertigo, a subsidiary of Phillips/ Phonogram). The cover, bright red with a photo of leather jacket clad punk spitting beer at the camera in front of a corrugated iron fence, is typically ’77 punk. The album’s title looks like an attempt to make something threatening palatable, new wave rather than punk. But the fact is, it’s a really good primer of mainly American 1977 punk bands with some pre- punk or proto- punk acts thrown in and there’s hardly a song on it you’d skip (I make an exception for The Boomtown Rats who I’d always skip). The sleeve thanks Linda and Seymour Stein (who scooped up most of the US punk/ New Wave acts for Seymour’s label Sire) and also Jake Riviera and Kosmo Vinyl from Stiff Records, both of whom knew their stuff. 

New Wave opens, as all punk compilation albums probably should, with The Ramones and one minute thirty two seconds of rushing buzzsaw guitars and Joey’s snarled vocals about Judy and Jackie…

Judy Is A Punk

From there it’s bam- bam- bam of U.S. punk and proto- punk- The Dead Boys, Patti Smith’s Piss Factory, The Runaways, New York Dolls, Richard Hell and The Voidoids and Love Comes In Spurts. France and Australia are represented by Little Bob Story a Skyhooks. Flip it over and side two kicks off with Talking Heads (if you’ve placed the needle past The Boomtown Rats), jerky, staccato, New York art with two loves  that go tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet like little birds. 

Love Goes To Building On Fire 

The Damned show up with New Rose, the first UK punk single and the one that got them blackballed by the punk crowd for the crime of speeding up the recoding in the studio, studio trickery being NOT PUNK. More Ramones, more Dead Boys, more Runaways, more Dolls and The Flaming Groovies who always seem like the outliers on this record, their 1967 San Francisco garage rock always feeling a bit too studied and retro for 1977 despite Shake Some Action being most definitely a good song. 

New Wave was a second hand shop staple for years- all the way through the 80s a record you could guarantee finding in the Punk section. Pulling it out again and playing it for this post, it still packs a punch, a 1977 sock to the face. 

Bagging Area Book Club Chapter Three- Solstice Edition

Today is the summer solstice, midsummer, the longest day and shortest night, a celebration of the sun that has been observed since the Neolithic era. To mark this event I thought I’d add to my recent Bagging Area Book Club posts with some solstice adjacent reading material. In May 2019 the first edition of Weird Walk was published, specifically timed to coincide with May Day (Beltane in Gaelic). Since then there have been a further six editions, with the Number Seven in 2023 the most recent although as the photo above shows I only have issues one, three and seven so far. Weird Walk was started by three friends ‘walking and engaging with the British landscape and its lore’. Forty pages printed on good quality card, well designed with quality photographs and illustrations and packed with interesting articles, Weird Walk is a treasure trove to be dipped in and out of. The first page of the first issue quotes Julian Cope in The Modern Antiquarian- ‘people don’t go anywhere unless there’s a signpost’- and from that point has included articles on Medieval graffiti, dolmen, Dungeon Synth, flat roof pubs, a walk around Avebury, a feature on the life of ‘seminal Tudor loon’ William Kempe, an interview with writer Ben Edge, the folklore of booze and of cheese, explorations of portals in Wiltshire, acid folk, author Benjamin Myers writing abut Lindisfarne, and the pastoral ambient cassette sounds of the label Verdant Wisdom. 

Acid folk? Here’s some Pentangle from 1969…

House Carpenter

Weird Walk is well worth looking out for and can be bought online from their website, each edition available for £5.50. 

I thought I’d throw in some more sounds for the solstice, some acid house rather than acid folk, recent releases to soundtrack tonight and beyond. First up is Temples remixed by Jono from Jagwar Ma, originally released in 2014 for Record Shop Day and recently made available at Temples’ Bandcamp page. Shelter Song (Jagwar Ma Jono’s Wrong Mix) takes Temples psyche rock and gives it an electronic thump and pulse, the synthline twisting its way round and round. 

Richard Sen, who compiled one of the best compilations of last year and a superb remix EP to accompany it (Dream The Dream) and who appeared on our Sounds From The Flightpath Estate Volume 1 album with the speaker shaking sounds of Tough On Chug, Tough On The Causes Of Chug, is set to release a debut solo album later this year, an album called India Man. To lead into it he’s released a single, Hills Of Kashmir, a cosmic disco/ acid house thumper that goes on with little let up in intensity and is very good indeed. 

Richard also turns up today at the latest release by teenage wonderkid OBOST who’s debut album Er… Hello? I wrote about a month ago. Sen has remixed Don’t Want To Be Alone, a star sailing, bleepy, dynamic version of the song with Bobby’s vocal on top. The EP is out today at Bandcamp. Richard’s remix is worth the price of admission alone but you also get OBOST’s own Jittery remix of the song and a new track, Take The Message. Happy solstice. 

Go Easy Step Lightly

The big stack of CDs that came free with magazines that I wrote about a few weeks ago continues to give up the goods as I work my way through it. It seems that people at Uncut and Mojo were well connected to Pete Wylie- Pete and Mighty Wah! songs have turned up on several CDs. 

In 2011 Mojo came accompanied by a CD called Panic- 15 Tracks Of Riotous ’80s Indie Insurrection!, a fifteen track compilation that opened with Madness and included Billy Bragg, The Three Johns, Robert Wyatt, Half Man Half Biscuit, Orange Juice, Redskins, and Felt among the line up. Halfway through was this…

The Day Margaret Thatcher Died (A Party Song)

At the point this CD was given away (and until this year with the release of Teach Yrself Wah!) Panic was the only physical release this song got. In the song Pete imagines the celebrations that would ensue with the news that Thatcher had died. He wasn’t wrong either- when she died in April 2013 there were indeed places that celebrated. There has been some revisionism in political and popular culture over the years, Thatcher portrayed in some televisual accounts of the 1980s as a slightly eccentric but loveable Prime Minister with big blow dried hair, a handbag and blouses with big bows who did the UK a lot of good. This rose tinted view of Thatcherism, her governments, their policies and the 1980s is also propagated by various right wing rags and is one of the few things the factions in the current Tory Party agree on. But let’s not kid ourselves- the Thatcher governments were hard right wing, authoritarian and deeply unpleasant, pushing a set of policies that among other things demonised huge sectors of the British working class, talked about the ‘managed decline’ of a city (Liverpool), gave their friends huge tax cuts (paid for by North Sea gas and selling off nationalised industries), ran down entire industries in the name of ‘the market’, creating the subsequent social problems which the people living in those communities were then blamed for. Trickle down economics- wealth doesn’t and hasn’t trickled down, it’s flowed up. On top of that she deployed police as the military wing of the Conservative government and was very friendly with all sorts of unpleasant and murderous dictators and regimes (Pinochet, apartheid South Africa). Also, Clause 28. So, no thank you to the revisionist view of Thatcher. 

The song is great with Pete in fine form- crunching guitars, rousing vocals, and a chant, ‘build a bonfire/ paint the sky/ come on down/ I’ll tell you why/ She’s gone/ and nobody cried’. Celebrating anyone’s death may seem needlessly callous but for many people who lived through the 80s, Thatcher is an exception. 

In April 2000 Uncut magazine gave away Unconditionally Guaranteed 2000.4, sixteen songs for the fourth month of the new millennium, opening with Chappaquiddick Skyline and ending with Mercury Rev. Five songs in was Pete Wylie and The Mighty Wah!’s Disneyland Forever. 

Disneyland Forever

This is Pete at his biggest and grandest, a huge sounding song with widescreen production, massive chiming guitars, pounding drums and Pete’s soaring vocal. The song originally came out on Wah!’s 2000 album Songs Of Strength And Heartbreak. Pete tells the story of the inspiration for this song when he plays it live. He met Gerry Conlon backstage at GMex, a Stop Sellafield show set up by Greenpeace with a line up including Big Audio Dynamite, Public Enemy, Kraftwerk and U2. Gerry Conlon had spent fifteen years in prison as one of the Guildford Four, wrongly convicted of being an IRA bomber. Gerry and the other three of the Guildford Four were released on appeal in October 1989- much to the chagrin of the Thatcher government. The Birmingham Six, similarly locked up on invented charges and police incompetence/ corruption, were freed not long after in 1991. Pete spoke to Gerry backstage, a man who had spent a decade and a half in prison for something he didn’t do, wrongfully convicted by the British justice system. Gerry struggled with life after being released, suffering from mental health issues, drugs and alcohol dependency, and a suicide attempt. When they spoke backstage at GMex they talked about life inside and injustice and Pete asked Gerry what he was going to do. As Pete tells it, Gerry said, ‘I don’t know for sure but whatever happens its going to be Disneyland forever’. Pete found this inspiring, a man who could be consumed by hate and bitterness seeing the world and the rest of his life in that way. Gerry died of cancer in 2014 aged sixty having recovered from some of his issues and becoming a campaigner for those who have suffered miscarriages of justice. The song is Pete’s attempt to do justice to the man- and justice he does. 

The third Wylie/ Wah! song from my pile of freebie magazine CDs was from 2003, a CD titled White Riot Vol Two (A Tribute To The Clash), sixteen Clash covers and a Joe Strummer song. The covers include Jesse Malin, The National, Joy Zipper (posted a few weeks ago), Sparks, Billy Bragg, Stiff Little Fingers, and Nouvelle Vague. It also had Pete Wylie captured live at The Railway, Haddington Festival in 2002, covering Mick Jones’ Stay Free, just Pete, his acoustic guitar and more passion than can be measured.

Stay Free (Live)

Saturday Soup

This Saturday Marconi Union play a gig at Soup in Manchester supported by Contours with further support by The Flightpath Estate DJs. On this occasion the Flightpath Estate DJs are me and Martin. We are starting things off at 6.30 and then on again between Contours and Marconi Union at about 8pm- we’re playing ambient/ electronic sounds and it would be lovely to see anyone who fancies a night of electronic music. There are some tickets left and they’re priced at under £14. 

I saw Marconi Union last march, an audio/ visual experience, three people playing laptop, synth and keys with a guitarist centre stage playing the least guitary guitar. Layers of ambient sounds but with real intent and propulsion. This is from an EP that came out in 2022, The Ilex, a moody and compelling piece of electronic music, non- stop drums and ripples of dark synth textures. It’s from Versions which you can get here. 

In 2021 Marconi Union released a seven track album they recorded with Jan Wobble, a Record Shop Day exclusive. The album opened with Wealth, seven minutes of abstract experimentation, a long slow fade in of ambience and then the deep, dub bass of Mr. Wobble. Jah’s repetitive bass riff provides the bedrock for the sci fi synths and keening guitar lines. 

Wealth

Contours provides support on Saturday, the project of Cumbrian born/ Manchester based DJ and producer Tom Burford. Contours released an EP in April- Elevations- which I’m going to be reviewing for Dr. Rob’s Ban Ban Ton Ton so I won’t steal my own thunder or Rob’s by posting anything about that. Instead here’s The Programme from a 7″/ digital from October 2021 (available at Bandcamp), a three and a half minute focussed excursion on drum machine and synth with some lovely percussion and the hint of some acid.

Sprechen Presents…

On Saturday night gig goers in Manchester had multiple options. The new Co- Op Arena in east Manchester hosted Liam Gallagher who was playing Definitely Maybe in full and then whatever else it is Liam plays after he’s done all the good songs. Old Trafford cricket ground had Foo Fighters. Manchester city centre on Saturday afternoon was packed with people coming and going, Liam and Foo fans, hen parties and earlier on glammed up Taylor Swift fans heading for trains to Liverpool. The other option was a walk up Cheetham Hill Road to The Yard and a Sprechen Records Presents night with live performances by Chris Massey’s The Thief Of Time and Psychederek. I took the non- Liam, no- Foo option and headed to The Yard. 

The Thief Of Time’s debut album Where Do I Belong? came out towards the end of last year and became one of my favourite albums of 2023 very quickly. Chris Massey usually makes dance music and ultimately that has one aim- to make people dance. The Thief Of Time is song based and more autobiographical, Chris bringing together a lifetime spent soaking up pop culture- music, films, comics, songs, bands, clubs- and forming into one seven song record. There are nods of the head to 80s pop, to mid- 80s New Order, electronic music and guitars. A Certain Ratio helped out as did Psychederek, Bay Bryan and Alison Rae who all provided vocals. At 9.45 pm on Saturday night Chris stepped on stage at The Yard for the debut live appearance as The Thief of Time, switching between guitar, synth drums, keys/ synths and vocals with a guitarist to his left. The songs definitely work live, pulsing and building, electronic pop with psychedelic and lots of film references. The projections behind added a visual dimension, sci fi loops, Manchester tower blocks, the footbridge over the M60 at Stretford and pulsating computer animations. Many of the songs have snatches of dialogue sampled and Chris had synced up the vocals samples to the moments of the films he’s took them from, the actors from various black and white films appearing on the screen as their voices came through the PA. It was hugely impressive and hopeful the first of many future performances. Towards the finale, with twin guitars chiming away, as the motorik/ cosmische rhythms thumped on and the synths soaring, the effect was magical and hypnotic. This one, Rendezvous On A Lost World, the ghostly refrain sung Psychederek, ‘You’re not alone’, echoed through the Victorian school building, sounded especially good.

The Thief Of Time were followed by Psychederek. His single Test Card Girl was one of my favourite releases of 2023 and his recent EP Alt! is already shaping up to be one of my favourites of ’24. Behind a bank of synths, drum machines and a laptop, a microphone and a guitar, Psychederek began with the dreamy, phased, blissed out synth chords of Test Card Girl, stretching the sounds and filtering them before the drum beat kicked in…

From there he went from one song straight into the next, a blend of gig and DJ set, the songs joined seemlessly. Hapi from Alt! had his singing, his voice floating from the PA, followed by the crunching cosmische rhythms and Neu! guitar/ synthlines of Nowhere To Nowhere. I had to leave before the end of Psychederek’s set but what I caught was superb and I’ll be back for more next time he plays. 

Psychederek’s Alt! is available at Sprechen, four songs for summer ’24 including his sun baked cover of 808 State’s Pacific. Digital and vinyl here. 

The Thief Of Time’s Where Do I Belong? is here, digital, CD and vinyl options plus posters and tote bags. 

Monday’s Long Song

In 1993 David Sylvian and Robert Fripp released a single- Jean The Birdman- across two CDs with different B-sides on the pair. CD Two came with Endgame, a beautiful, understated acoustic song, and the ten minute and fourteen second wonder that is Earthbound/ Starblind. Effectively, it’s two songs stuck together. The first half is David singing over acoustic guitar, close and melodic with lyrics about magic and nature and a woman who is ‘giving me questions and quizzical looks/ She tears up my papers and burns all my books’, someone who has ‘been through this world before’. At four minutes seventeen seconds the second half starts, six minutes of Frippertronics, the conjuring of ambient guitar soundscapes. The first half is earthbound I guess and the second half is starblind. 

Earthbound/ Starblind

Forty Minutes Of Pop Will Eat Itself

This goose lives at Portland basin in Ashton- under-  Lyne, East Manchester. When we were there a couple of weeks ago they warned us that the geese were nesting and could be aggressive if disturbed. They didn’t mention this one though, who has necked two cans of Stella and now wants a fight. 

Pop Will Eat Itself are touring this autumn. I’m quite tempted. Back in autumn 1988 I saw them at Liverpool University. In my head they were one of the first gigs I attended in Liverpool, close to the start of the academic year, maybe just after Fresher’s Week- but false memory syndrome has had me here because according to PWEI’s own On Patrol gig history at their website they didn’t play the Mountford Hall until 2nd December 1988. There is a live recording of the gig on Mixcloud, probably one I bought at some point on cassette from the bootleg tape sellers in the student’s union. 

The gig was great, PWEI hitting the stage and giving us an hour of their mash up of rock, rap, dance music and samples. The room was a real gathering of the late 80s tribes, grebos, indie kids, and goths all standing around waiting. I was wearing Levi’s, Converse, a black t- shirt and dark green waistcoat (with Watchmen smiley face badge) combo with, for some reason, a bandanna tied round my head. This sticks in the memory for reasons I cannot fully ascertain- as does my conversation with Tracey, a hippy girl who was on my course. We had a chat, all going well, but at some point I referred to Poppie Clint as Clive and Tracey was withering in her look and response. ‘Clint, Adam, he’s called Clint’. They came on stage to rescue me from my embarrassment (Tracey later came with us to see The House Of Love in Widnes though that could have been because Al had a car). 

Stourbridge’s finest were huge fun, a riot of sounds, samples, buzzsaw guitars and shouting. B.A.D. may have got their before them but they were fairly ground-breaking in their approach and records. The mix below reflects that I hope, forty minutes of late 80s and early 90s collisions of styles, pop culture references all over the place, focussing mainly on singles and finishing with a song released for Italia 90, an unlikely music- football- politics crossover.

Forty Minutes Of Pop Will Eat Itself

• The Incredible PWEI v Dirty Harry
• Can U Dig It (7″ Mix)
• Dance Of The Mad
• Eat Me, Drink Me, Love Me, Kill Me
• Karmadrome
• Wise Up Sucker
• Def. Con. One.
• Orgone Accumulator
• Inject Me
• Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina

The Incredible PWEI v Dirty Harry is from the 92 Degrees single from 1991, a superb acid house/ film sample fest. 

Can U Dig It was a single in 1989, from their second album, This Is The Day.. This Is The Hour… This Is This!, a list of influences and references from TV, film, comics, records and that sounds like what life felt like in 87/ 88 from The Twilight Zone to Alan Moore (knows the score), V For Vendetta and Into The Groovy, Run DMC and Renegade Soundwave, Marvel and DC. Wise Up Sucker is from the same album, a single too as is Def. Con. One., the lead single from 1988’s This Is This!, the archetypal grebo rock song, a collision of punk, hip hop, rock, indie and samples. Inject Me was on the album too. 

Dance Of The Mad is from 1990, a single that lost the word Bastards from the end of the title to make it more acceptable for TV and radio play. Produced by Flood and taken from the third PWEI album, Cure For Sanity, and recorded at Paul Weller’s Black Barn studio in Surrey. It’s Weller’s studio now, I’m not sure if he owned it then. I can’t imagine much common ground in 1990 between Weller and the Poppies but who knows.

Eat, Me, Drink Me, Love Me, Kill Me and Karmadrome are from 1992, a double A- side single. You need both sides. 

Orgone Accumulator is a cover of the Hawkwind song from a 1987 covers EP along with Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Love Missile F1- 11.

Touched by The Hand Of Cicciolina is from Cure For Sanity and a summer 1990 single, one of the songs of the summer (a summer that wasn’t short of memorable songs). It features/ pays tribute to Hungarian- Italian porn star Ilona Staller who was elected into the Italian parliament in 1987. A couple of years later she offered to have sex with Saddam Hussein in exchange for peace. The piano riff, Gary Linekar sample and chant of ‘Cicicolina/ Ciciolina/ This time for I- tal- ya’, are all PWEI gold.